


echoes in my soul

by ghiblitears



Series: the edge of our hope and the end of our days [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drift Side Effects, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, IT'S LIGHT I PROMISE, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, VLD Poly Week 2018, and they were drift compatible, oh my god they were drift compatible, we'll get to the angst later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghiblitears/pseuds/ghiblitears
Summary: Everyone dreams of Kaiju, pilots most of all. The easiest solution is to wait it out together.(Shklance Pacific Rim AU ficlet)





	echoes in my soul

**Author's Note:**

> With seconds to spare I present my prompt fill for VLD Poly Week Day 5: Whole!
> 
> I'm a slut for pacrim aus and kicking around in the Orion server has made everything I touch Shklance for the time being, apparently. So, drift compatible Jaeger pilot boyfriends, natch.
> 
> I have some lore for this I'd like to explore in some other fics. I guess all you need to know going in is that the premise started with established Shance, and Keith was added when they became pilots of the three-armed Jaeger Horizon Atlas (just prior to when this takes place). So this fic is more of an exploration of the dynamic I want to set up later.
> 
> As always, enjoy!! I love y'all.

Teeth. Claws. Electric blood spattered on dark walls, a macabre painting done in shades of glowing blue. A shriek against his ears, a terrifying noise that scrapes against his skull and pulls air straight from his lungs.

Lance wakes quietly — barely a gasp and he's conscious, blinking the dream's afterimages away into darkness. The military quarters buzz with a low electrical hum even with all the lights turned off; it drowns out the deafening silence softly, gently, in a way that helps him stay grounded in reality.

Now awake, he settles his heart and calms his breathing until it's nothing more than a whisper.

It's a dream-world he's found himself in often — he'd probably visit it daily were it not for his mind's fondness for conjuring new and exciting nightmares — and yet it never fails to send him crashing into wakefulness. Sometimes he's piloting Seraphium Blue again, watching a battle unfold through her huge metal eyes, knowing the casualties and destruction he's causing with every step he takes into the city. Other times he's sitting on the roof of a building in Havana and watching the chaos unfold beneath him as the Kaiju surfaces suddenly from the Gulf of Mexico and trains its numerous glowing eyes on the coast. He pulls a little more into himself at the rising memories, bringing his knees up so he can rest his chin on them and stare at the PPDC logo on the wall. The military barracks offer no comfort; they simply stare back as a constant reminder of why he’s here.

Next to him, in sleep's unrelenting grip, Shiro shudders and Lance's heart aches in response.

Everyone dreams of Kaiju — pilots most of all.   
   
He's always hesitant to wake Shiro from a nightmare, but it becomes immediately apparent that this time he doesn't have to. Shiro jolts awake with a gasp, eyes snapping open in the gloom, and he sits upright in one swift motion. His hand fists violently in the sheets as he scrabbles for purchase on something,  _anything_ to stay tethered. A thin line of blood drips from his nose.

"I've got you, it's okay — Shiro, I've got you," Lance says, slow and clear. He reaches over to pluck a tissue from the box on the bedside table and reaches up to wipe away the red. When it's gone his hands settle softly over Shiro's. They're both unfairly familiar with this routine by now. "Just breathe."

"Fuck," he chokes out. Blind panic seems to have left him, but he's clearly still caught in the aftermath of the nightmare. He leans into Lance. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Lance repeats. "Was it—?"

He breathes shallowly. The sound fills the small space quicker than it should.

"Shinigami, this time," he manages. His head drops into his hand. "I'm sorry,” he repeats quietly, brokenly.

Anger stirs quietly under Lance's skin and he pulls Shiro in closer, wrapping his arms around his partner's limp form and leaning his head on his shoulder.

Lance hates that Shiro's history with the Kaiju is a double-edged sword, hates that it cuts him so deeply and continually. First it was Shinigami, the Category 2 that had decimated the coast of Japan and left fifteen-year-old Shiro running terrified in the streets. That was back in the third movement from the Breach, before they’d figured out drift tech and cities were still burning on the horizon with alarming regularity. And then six years later the knife had twisted to bring another Kaiju, Imperator, who'd shown up off the coast of Seattle and absolutely decimated Shiro's old Jaeger, Tempest Nyx. The blow it dealt is still one they're dealing with four years later — Shiro worst of all, having lost his arm, the Jaeger, and his drift partner in the ensuing fight.

For Lance, killing Kaiju isn't just for the good of humanity. His drive comes from a far more personal source as catharsis for the wounds they've left on people he loves. Each defeated Kaiju is a demon dead and gone, a ghost he can exorcise with iron and steel.

For his family. For Cuba. For Shiro.

The door hisses open suddenly, flooding the room with light. In the doorway is a sleep-mussed but very awake figure. It seems like he's undergone a wild dash to get here — his black shirt is inside out, hiding the Defense Corps logo, and the loosely-tied sweats expose the barest sliver of skin at his waist. Cold light from the hall outside catches the ends of his dark, curling hair and turns them silver.

"Keith?" Lance speaks softly — he still sort of thinks of their new drift partner akin to a wild animal, easily scared off and prone to lashing out — but he's not here by accident. Lance can feel it. "What are you—?"

"Is Shiro okay?" The words seem to tumble out of him before he can stop them, and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other apprehensively. One hand folds across his middle to tangle itself in his shirt's loose fabric. He seems smaller, somehow; for a second Lance sees a remnant of the younger Keith he saw in their first Drift. 

"He was having a nightmare. I — you both were," Keith continues quietly.

   
It's not uncommon for Drifts to echo amongst pilots even after they've disconnected from the Jaeger tech — he and Shiro have had their share of domestic musical moments, where they have the same song stuck in their heads as a result of the mind-meld — but he's a little surprised it's happened so soon with their new pilot. In comparison to a duet, a shared nightmare seems cruel as far as lingering Drifts go.

But then he remembers their first Drift, recalls the intensity with which Keith had latched onto his and Shiro's broken memories, considers the way they'd both grabbed onto his loneliness and fears the same way, and then things make more sense.

"I'm sorry," Keith says in the ensuing silence. "I'll go."

Lance's call of "Stay," falls into harmony with the soft, pleading way Shiro says "Keith?" and he freezes in the doorway.

"Don't leave," Shiro continues. He reaches out his arm, palm up; an offering. "Please."

They'd all felt the connection, known deep down that there would more to their Drift than just being a team. He seems ready to take that step forward. And if Shiro is, Lance thinks, then so is he.

Keith looks hesitant — understandably so — but after a long time waiting he crosses the floor to stand next to the bed. He doesn't join them until Shiro takes his hand between shaking fingers and pulls him down with a kind of desperation special to Jaeger pilots; the kind that tells you that if you don't hold on, things will slip away.

Keith settles on Shiro's left side, head pillowed on his shoulder. Lance watches him acclimate as he relaxes gradually into the embrace. Shiro's breathing evens out — the night terrors seem to have left him for now, thank God — and Lance sees his remaining arm give their new partner's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. 

They don't need to speak. Pilots say the Drift is silence, that it's the spaces to hide between when reality and memory are too loud. The ghostly Drift cocoons them in comfort.

It doesn't take long for sleep to claim Shiro again, but both Lance and Keith linger in consciousness. Secretly, Lance doesn't want to let this moment go just yet; it's their first real connection outside of Horizon Atlas, the first time Keith hasn't pushed back against their attempts to let him in. It'd probably be cause for celebration if they weren't all so tired and if the circumstances were better. With the way their lives are going this is probably the closest they'll get to domesticity.

That's a depressing thought.

He can tell that Keith is still hesitant to be here, though, so he reaches over and gently laces their hands together, holding steadfast even under Keith's surprised and apprehensive gaze.

"I've got you," he whispers. "Sleep."

Keith nods before he lets his shining eyes slip shut. His fingers squeeze Lance's; Lance returns the gesture.

Night takes them like that, all three tangled together in the small military bunk, keeping nightmares at bay.   


   
***   


   
Keith isn't entirely sure he knows where he is upon waking. Bright yellow light makes him wince when he first cracks his eyes open and it takes a long moment for him to adjust, and then it registers in his mind. 

Damn automatic daytime sequence. It's the first time he's actually felt like he could sleep in, so of course it's the first time the lights have woken up before he has. He's warm under the blankets, and when a gentle breath ghosts across his skin he remembers that he's not the bed’s only occupant.

Lance is still asleep, nose pressed to the back of Shiro's neck and eyes shut against the buzzing fluorescent light. Their positions shifted somewhat during the night, although not enough to have woken anyone up. Keith is now almost nose-to-nose with Shiro, close enough that his white fringe falls into Keith’s eyes. Lance’s hand has slipped slightly from their grip and left just their pinkies linked together, his arm slung protectively over Shiro’s sleeping form.

The sight makes warmth bloom in his chest. In the moment he can let go of any lingering doubt he had about being assigned to these two as their Drift partner and simply embrace the calm. Things may change later, but for now he thinks it’s okay.

He’s thought several times about what Lance and Shiro are to him. Possibility. A ‘what-if’. 

A future...?

“Morning,” Shiro mumbles, startling Keith half out of his wits. He blinks his eyes open, his tired smile faltering slightly when he sees Keith’s expression. “Nightmare?” he asks, brows creasing together in a frown.

Keith shakes his head. “A lot on my mind,” he whispers.

Shiro slides his hand out to cup Keith’s jaw. He traces the old scar that cuts through Keith’s cheek; a parting gift to him in the attack that had taken Vancouver. Everyone remembers that attack as a figurehead of the Kaiju war, how Thunderhead had carved a jagged line through the city centre and bisected the coast before it finally succumbed to an armada of military weaponry. Only Keith remembers the overheated glass buildings shattering from the soundwaves, how the shards fell like acid rain and left scorched marks all over his body – he suspects it’s because no one else made it out of there alive. The city had burned for a week straight even after Thunderhead’s death.

“I’m glad you stayed,” Shiro says quietly. “No dreams after you showed up.”

It’s true; he'd spent the night embraced in calm rather than chaos. Keith hesitates to tell him just how much of the dreams he'd seen through their ghostly drift last night. Maybe that's a conversation for another time. They're hard to ignore, though. Lance’s nightmares are like drowning, like sinking continually into the depths of the ocean until the pressure becomes too much. Shiro's night terrors, on the other hand, are like standing in the middle of a hurricane, being constantly battered and torn at until there's nothing left standing. Two opposing forces that are too much for any one person to handle.

Keith's own nightmares are nothing to dismiss. But if his presence can quell them for his partners even a little bit, that's enough for him.

There’s no way Shiro should be able to hear his thoughts outside the Drift but after last night, apparently anything is possible. Somehow he catches the shift happening under Keith's skin and moves closer until they actually are nose-to-nose, sharing the same pillow, trading breaths in the silence that follows. His fingers still follow the scar's curve.

No one has ever touched his scars so gently. Keith lets him.

The kiss that follows is feather-light. He's not sure if it’s him or Shiro who moves in but it feels barely-there, almost lost in the moment, the barest press of lips to skin. Their free hands entwine together and Keith feels Shiro smile against his mouth, an act that makes his heart stutter in his chest. When the kiss ends he reopens his eyes to the sight of Shiro’s kind gaze fixed on him.

Keith’s head spins. His skin tingles as though he’s received a static shock. Ranger training never prepared him for  _this_ _,_ for feelings, for...

“Lance wanted the first kiss. When he hears I got it he’ll probably come running – don't say I didn’t warn you,” he says, eyes glancing down to their hands still pinkie-promised together. Then he shuts his eyes again, evidently as content to ignore the daytime cycle as Keith was.

Now Keith is far more awake than he was before. His gaze flickers between Lance and Shiro, taking the moment and quietly tucking it away in his memories. 

He still doesn’t quite know what this is – but the way things are going, he’s content to let it happen.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ babykeithsmullet or ghibliins on tumblr


End file.
